100

Surprise! Charters want even more money.

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In testimony before the House Finance committee, Charter school operators and their boosters expressed sadness at the Governor's education budget. Despite school districts having to deduct $824 billion this school year to fund charter schools (most of which are failing), they want more. They argued they should receive

  • $5,704 per pupil, not $5,000, as the base amount (but would not answer the question of whether or not traditional public schools should receive a base amount higher than $5,000).
  • Up to $1,000 per pupil (instead of he proposed $100) for buildings and that online charter schools should also receive building funds

Only 5% of Ohio's students go to a charter school, and much less than 1% go to a quality one, yet charter operators and their boosters want more than 10% of the funding. These aren't fair or tennable requests being made, it is greed at the expense of the majority of students who choose to go to a traditional public school.

Some Choice

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ODE has just released their partial school report card. It doesn't contain any final grades, but it does tell us whether schools made adequate yearly progress, and the news isn't pretty for Ohio's charter school movement.

Of the 352 charter schools listed, 58.2% of them failed to meet their adequate yearly progress (AYP) metrics.

If a student attends a school in any of Allen, Warren, Erie, Hancock, Lake, Madison, or Tuscarawas counties, not a single charter school made adequate yearly progress. Indeed, out of the 36 counties that have charter schools, 24 counties had schools that combined for more than half their charters failing to meet their adequate yearly progress.

County Not Met AYP Met AYP
Allen 100.0% 0.0%
Warren 100.0% 0.0%
Erie 100.0% 0.0%
Hancock 100.0% 0.0%
Lake 100.0% 0.0%
Madison 100.0% 0.0%
Tuscarawas 100.0% 0.0%
Stark 83.3% 16.7%
Trumbull 75.0% 25.0%
Summit 73.3% 26.7%
Montgomery 72.4% 27.6%
Mahoning 71.4% 28.6%
Hamilton 67.9% 32.1%
Richland 66.7% 33.3%
Clark 66.7% 33.3%
Fairfield 66.7% 33.3%
Morrow 66.7% 33.3%
Franklin 65.3% 34.7%
Butler 60.0% 40.0%
Lucas 58.8% 41.2%
Lorain 54.5% 45.5%
Marion 50.0% 50.0%
Columbiana 50.0% 50.0%
Greene 50.0% 50.0%
Cuyahoga 42.0% 58.0%
Portage 40.0% 60.0%
Licking 25.0% 75.0%
Muskingum 25.0% 75.0%
Seneca 25.0% 75.0%
Champaign 0.0% 100.0%
Wayne 0.0% 100.0%
Scioto 0.0% 100.0%
Coshocton 0.0% 100.0%
Hardin 0.0% 100.0%
Jackson 0.0% 100.0%
Van Wert 0.0% 100.0%
Grand Total 58.2% 41.8%

There's a lot of students in a lot of schools, in a lot of counties not being served by the "choices" they are being presented with.

Data proves voters increasingly supporting schools

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Since we launched Join the Future almost one year ago, we have been tracking Ohio's school levy election results. Below we have plotted the passage rates for New and Renewal levies, and the combined results. As you can see, passage rates have been steadily increasing since the May 2011 primary. Let's hope that voters continue to support our public schools in ever greater numbers, despite the Governor's inexplicable call to vote against school funding.

Levy Date New Renewal All
May 2011 35.3% 91.8% 58.9%
Aug 2011 19.0% 100% 32.0%
Nov 2011 28.4% 88.6% 50.8%
Mar 2012 56.6% 98.1% 75.2%

Levy Trend Results

SB5 could turn Gov. Kasich into a lame duck

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A short while ago we published an analysis piece to determine which of the Senators who voted for SB5 would be up for reelection in 2012. A number of readers asked us to perform the same analysis for those House members who voted for SB5, so here it is.

The Ohio House of Representatives is made up of 99 districts. Currently the Republicans control 59 and the Democrats 40. The House is quite different from the Senate. Representatives are elected every 2 years, not every 4 and every district will be contested in 2012. Representatives become term limited after 4 terms. So with that basic understanding, let’s look at the SB5 roll call.

We can eliminate all of the Democrats from consideration as not a single one of them voted for SB5.

While SB5 was passed on a party line vote, some Republicans did cross the isle to vote no too. They were Randy Gardner (R), Ross W. McGregor (R), John Carey (R), Terry Johnson (R), and Casey Kozlowski (R). That reduces the potential total to 54 Republicans who voted for SB5.

Five of these Representatives will be term limited, they are Louis W. Blessing, Jr. (R), Courtney Combs (R), William P. Coley, II (R), Joseph W. Uecker (R) and Danny R. Bubp (R). So we’re down to 49.

One other Republican who is unlikely to be on the ballot next year is Rep Mecklenborg (R). He was recently arrested for a DUI in Indiana enjoying the company of a young woman purported to be an employee of a nearby adult entertainment establishment. It’s quite possible he won’t serve out his term, as calls for his resignation continue to grow.

That then, gives us 48 potential Republican Representatives who will be on the ballot in 2012 who voted for SB5. They are, sorted by their 2010 votes for percentage:

District Member Percentage vote for Percentage vote against
91 Bill Hayes (R) 47.06 52.94
41 Lynn Slaby (R) 49.9 50.1
21 Mike Duffey (R) 50.48 49.52
96 Al Landis (R) 51.04 48.96
42 Kristina Roegner (R) 51.69 48.31
18 Mike Dovilla (R) 52.41 47.59
1 Craig Newbold (R) 52.58 47.42
19 Anne Gonzales (R) 52.68 47.32
63 Ron Young (R) 53.14 46.86
93 Andy Thompson (R) 53.81 46.19
17 Marlene Anielski (R) 54.75 45.25
43 Todd McKenney (R) 54.99 45.01
81 Rex Damschroder (R) 55.31 44.69
85 Bob Peterson (R) 55.32 44.68
46 Barbara R. Sears (R) 56.34 43.66
86 Cliff Rosenberger (R) 59.46 40.54
16 Nan A. Baker (R) 60.19 39.81
50 Christina Hagan (R) 60.52 39.48
58 Terry Boose (R) 62.29 37.71
36 Michael Henne (R) 63.27 36.73
23 Cheryl L. Grossman (R) 63.41 36.59
34 Peter Stautberg (R) 64.81 35.19
38 Terry Blair (R) 67.49 32.51
98 Richard Hollington (R) 68.44 31.56
97 David Hall (R) 68.8 31.2
74 Bruce W. Goodwin (R) 69.01 30.99
51 Kirk Schuring (R) 69.2 30.8
71 Jay Hottinger (R) 69.31 30.69
84 Bob D. Hackett (R) 69.7 30.3
37 Jim Butler (R) 69.71 30.29
70 Jarrod B. Martin (R) 69.93 30.07
53 Timothy Derickson (R) 70.19 29.81
69 William G. Batchelder (R) 70.34 29.66
2 Andrew Brenner (R) 70.35 29.65
67 Peter Beck (R) 70.74 29.26
76 Robert Sprague (R) 70.78 29.22
75 Lynn R. Wachtmann (R) 72.05 27.95
90 Margaret Ann Ruhl (R) 72.26 27.74
4 Matt Huffman (R) 72.32 27.68
35 Ron Maag (R) 73.02 26.98
78 John Adams (R) 74.27 25.73
79 Richard N. Adams (R) 77.09 22.91
3 Ron Amstutz (R) 100 0
5 Gerald L. Stebelton (R) 100 0
77 Jim Buchy (R) 100 0
82 Jeffrey A. McClain (R) 100 0
83 David E. Burke (R) 100 0
94 Troy Balderson (R) 100 0

14 SB5 supporters could not survive a 5% swing from their margin of victory in 2010 (2 didn’t even reach the 50% threshold due to a third party taking significant support). With only a 10-seat margin to maintain control, it is quite possible that control of the Ohio House will swing away from the Republicans and back to the Democrats.

Such a swing, could put a halt to the Governors radical agenda and turn the remaining 2 years of his first term into a lame duck effort.

Petition training pics and update

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A packed house at JTF world HQ last night for petition training. Folks were excited and ready to go!

[flickr set=72157626528067350]

Thanks to the OEA staff for taking the time to deliver the training.

We also learned that We Are Ohio have begun printing 100,000 petitions which should start being available Friday. Stay tuned.